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Authors: Grace F. Edwards

A Toast Before Dying (26 page)

BOOK: A Toast Before Dying
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“Why couldn’t I have what? It’s easy enough for you to sit here and judge me. You are looking at life through the prism of wealth and privilege. Well, let me tell you: For a while I was able to do that also, but that didn’t prevent me from hearing a lot of my friends—rich,
powerful, political—speak of black people in the most malicious, spiteful terms. Casual remarks privately made over private cocktails before stepping out to attend public fund-raisers for black causes. I know because I raised my glass right along with them. I heard remarks made in the presence of their own servants. As if the servants were invisible. Inhuman.

“My husband would not have married me if he had known. Your husband, a white Wall Street banker, would not have married you if he had known you had one drop of black blood, despite your blond hair and blue eyes. No. You would’ve ended up like your grandmother. Good enough to love but not to marry. I learned long ago that if you’re black, you cannot—you
will
not be allowed to live like a human being. As far as I’m concerned, not even in this time and place. I took Thea’s life to save my own. And yours.”

I watched Teddi lean back with her hand to her mouth, as if her mother had exhaled a noxious germ.

“Oh, no! You didn’t do it for me because I wouldn’t have had a problem.”

“Oh, I see. And now that you’ve discovered your history, I suppose you feel comfortable enough to really get involved with that jailbird?”

I saw Teddi’s eyes flash, but she seemed beyond anger and the tears did not come.

“I’m not hooking up with anyone. Kendrick and I had a long talk. He loved Thea very much and that’s that. And he’s not the jailbird. You are. You always were. But now you get to exchange one prison cell for another. For murder.”

I watched Marcella’s face crumble. The errant child hadn’t heard a word she’d said, so Marcella struck back hard, trying to get in a last, vicious blow. “Thea was a whore who wanted more than money,” Marcella cried.

Teddi looked at her impassively. “If your daughter went that way, it’s because you, and only you, sent her that way. All she wanted was for you to own up to her, to acknowledge her.”

Marcella leaned back and folded her arms across her chest.

“Well, I had no intention of doing that. She was never a part of my life, so it was easier to get rid of her. I called that bar and she met me out in the alley. I had planned everything. I even drove by there several times and I knew exactly what I was going to do.

“I wore the same clothes I’m wearing now and I carried the same gun—your father’s gun.”

She drew a breath and went on, sounding proud of what she had accomplished. I could not believe that anyone could be so blind, so filled with self-loathing.

“This hooded jacket,” Marcella continued, “glasses, dark makeup and in the confusion, I walked away from that alley to my car. I didn’t even run. I walked. There was that cripple in his wheelchair. He slipped away but not for long. I knew I’d find him.”

She turned to me then with a look that could keep a body frozen for years. “I saw you with him. You also got away once, but I knew I would see you again.”

“Marcella, you killed a man for nothing,” I said. “He didn’t see you well enough to identify you. You
killed him for nothing. Just like you killed your daughter. Now here you are, facing some serious hard time.”

Marcella closed her eyes and brushed her hair from her face. Her careful makeup could not conceal the shock of revelation, and age seemed to creep through even as I watched her.

“You don’t understand. I have always faced hard time. And since it no longer matters, yes, that was my earring. Sometime later, I misplaced the other one and I can’t remember where … like the other part of my life, I can’t remember.”

She began to cry, but Teddi, leaning back in her chair, did not move. She simply watched.

I turned and walked up the aisle. There was a phone downstairs in the lobby and I dialed Tad’s number.

When I returned, Marcella was slouched in her chair and her face had again taken on a blank expression. Teddi was crying now and I wondered if her tears were for Thea’s lost life or for her mother’s.

I sat down next to Teddi to listen for the faint siren of the police, and I thought of Dessie, who, out of love, had struggled to do the right thing.

“Listen, Teddi,” I said. “There’s a beautiful picture of your grandmother I think you might like to have.”

“My grandmother?” She turned to look at me. “Of course I’m interested. Where is it?”

“Senator Michaels—
ex
-Senator Michaels—has it. Have your attorney contact him. Mention Thea’s bankbook and Michaels’ll have that picture in your hand in a
matter of days. Right now, he can’t handle any more scandal, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll be glad to help you because Miss Adele wants a copy also.”

She nodded her head, as if coming out of a deep sleep. Her tears had dried and she seemed more composed.

“Is Miss Adele a relative also?”

“You might say that,” I murmured. “She can tell you everything you need to know. And she also serves the coldest champagne I ever tasted.”

chapter twenty-nine

W
hen the American Airlines jet touched down and Alvin rushed through the crowd toward us, I almost didn’t recognize him. He looked taller, older, and more muscular. I watched his loping stride and wondered where his childhood had gone. It had been here just two months ago.

“Hi Mali! Grandpa! Kendrick, man, how you doin’?” He hugged us and stepped back to look at Kendrick. “Yo, man. Even your bumps got muscles. You musta been into some serious weights.”

Kendrick shrugged as we made our way to the baggage area, where Alvin scooped up his duffel. In the parking lot, we piled into Kendrick’s car and headed toward the Long Island Expressway. The charges against Kendrick had been dismissed when Marcella was arrested, but he wanted to tell Alvin the story himself. It wouldn’t sound right, he said, coming from anyone else.

But Alvin was still excited about his vacation and we let him talk. “Do you know that a Captain Bill Pinckney from Chicago and Captain Ted Seymour from the Virgin Islands are the only two black men to have sailed around the world solo? Seymour did it in 1987 and Pinckney did it in 1992 in a forty-seven-foot yacht.”

I was impressed. We were all impressed.

“Guess what I’m going to do when I finish college, Grandpa?”

Dad smiled. “You’re going to sail solo around the world. Why not?”

I said nothing. College was at least six more years away. Time enough for me to come to terms with my nervousness and with whatever he wanted to do with his life.

“So Kendrick, what’s been happening? What’d I miss?”

I sat back and watched the landscape of Queens flit by as Kendrick maneuvered through the traffic. He recounted the events in a straightforward way, and by the time we’d crossed the Triboro Bridge and had eased through a break to turn toward the Harlem River Drive, the story was over.

For several minutes, Alvin gazed out of the window. Then he looked at Dad, and at Kendrick, and turned to glance back at me. “I didn’t know love could be so much trouble.”

There was a short silence before Dad replied. “Depends, my boy. It all depends.”

“On what?” Alvin asked. His young face was clouded with concern.

When no one answered, he shook his head. “Well, all I can say is: That solo trip ’round the world is lookin’ better and better.”

This time we really had no answer, but Kendrick managed to smile as he lowered the window. The noise of traffic rushed in as we came off the drive at 135th Street and headed home.

“Wait and see, Alvin. Wait and see,” he smiled.

about the author

GRACE F. EDWARDS was born and raised in Harlem and currently lives in Brooklyn. Her first novel,
In the Shadow of the Peacock
, was published in 1988. Her first mystery,
If I Should Die
, debuted in May 1997.

If you enjoyed Grace Edwards’ A TOAST BEFORE DYING, you will not want to miss any of the mysteries in this critically acclaimed series.

You’ll find the next mystery featuring Mali Anderson, NO TIME TO DIE, coming in hardcover from Doubleday Books in Summer 1999, at your favorite bookseller. Don’t miss it!

BOOK: A Toast Before Dying
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